One week after returning to the UFC in dominant fashion with a win over Carlos Condit, Georges St-Pierre addressed the situation everyone has been focused on since prior to his victory at UFC 154: the potential of a super-fight with middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

Appearing on “Tout Le Monde en Parle” (“Everyone is Talking”) on Sunday, St-Pierre explained that while he’s certainly interested in the opportunity to fight another of the sport’s dominant champions, he wants to do it when the timing feels right for him, and right now, it doesn’t feel right (Transcription courtesy of MMAFighting.com):

“This fight is the cherry on the sundae. He wants to fight me so he can then retire. I would like to fight him too, but after I fight him and win the fight, what happens next? These days, yeah, there’s a lot of money to be made, but I don’t fight for the money. My motivation is to be the best. Like we said, to be the Wayne Gretzky of my sport. So if I fight him, what happens next? It will be over. So yes, I want the fight, but I want to take it when I decide the time is right, not when he wants the fight to happen.

“On top of that, he weighs 234 pounds; I weigh 188. So there’s a big weight difference. I’ve fought guys who were bigger — I’m not scared of him — it’s just that I will take this fight when it makes sense for me. I just came back from an injury, there’s money to be made, there are fights in my weight class, other challenges out there, and if I fight him, I will have to gain weight, while he will have to lose weight, and then afterwards, I won’t be able to come back to my weight class.

“First and foremost, I have things to do at 170 pounds. When I am ready and when I want the fight, that’s when it will happen.”

Let me start by saying that I agree with everything St-Pierre says about Silva’s motivation to make this fight happen now; the “win and retire” scenario is something I discussed back in September, and truly believe would happen. I also think he makes very valid points about the weight difference. While Silva would certainly have the tougher time getting down to whatever weight that agree to fight at (178 pounds makes sense to me), he’s also shown the greater ability to shift weight classes, and would be considerably bigger than St-Pierre in the cage on fight night.

That being said, I look at this as St-Pierre’s counter to the full-court press Silva and UFC President Dana White started prior to UFC 154. This is the logical counter to the myriad reasons for the fight happening that have been presented by White and Silva, and just as their pitch makes perfect sense, so too does St-Pierre’s counter. Welcome to the back-and-forth of trying to make the biggest fight in UFC history happen.

Just as Silva’s “I’m old and I don’t want to take super-risky fights” approach has some flaws, so too does St-Pierre’s “there would be nothing left for me after this” counter. While St-Pierre contends there would nothing left for him to accomplish should he beat Silva, I beg to differ.

For starters, Silva’s records still remain.

As much as a win over “The Spider” would put St-Pierre on another level in the “Greatest of All-Time” debate, Silva would still hold the UFC record for most consecutive wins in the UFC and most consecutive title defenses, both of which are within reach for St-Pierre. Beating the man himself fulfills “The Ric Flair Rule,” but having the records would further distance him from the competition. It’s why Cal Ripken didn’t just take a day off after topping Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak – why not really put the record out of reach while you can, just to make it your own completely?

Additionally, beating Silva doesn’t eliminate the list of challengers that await St-Pierre at welterweight either. Though it may not be as exciting to fight Johny Hendricks after besting Anderson Silva (hypothetically speaking, of course), they’re very different puzzles to solve, and Hendricks is very much a legitimate threat to the claim the title. If St-Pierre were to face Silva in May as proposed, a bout with Hendricks – or whoever is the top contender du jour when he’s done with the super-fight – would probably take place near the end of the year, giving the division another 12 months to establish a proper pecking order in advance of 2014.

While I completely understand St-Pierre’s desire to wait until the time is right for him, the truth is that he’s kind of at Silva’s mercy when it comes to this fight, as the middleweight champion is close to calling it a career. As much as GSP wants to get his fair share of favourable conditions, the reality is that the UFC and Silva are on the same page here, and their tag team efforts are going to be hard for St-Pierre to fend off. They’ll have a suitable counter-offer or consolation prize ready for every reasonable objection GSP puts forth.

The opportunity for a fight like this doesn’t come around too often, and as we’ve seen with boxing’s white whale (Mayweather vs. Pacquiao), interest in such a fight can only sustain so long before it turns into lamentations about what could have been. As much as St-Pierre would prefer this fight take place a year or two down the road, he doesn’t have the luxury of waiting. If he wants to face Silva, now is the time.

As much as St-Pierre is being double-teamed when it comes to the timing of this fight, he’s not without a strong bargaining position, and that’s what all this right here amounts to – bargaining.

“You want this fight now? I’m not sure. I’m thinking maybe a year from now. I think I’d like to fight Johny Hendricks first, but if you give me this…”

Once the UFC backs the money truck up to St-Pierre’s personal Scrooge McDuck-style money bin, I have a feeling the welterweight champion will change his stance on fighting Silva, and the company will have their super-fight all lined up.

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